Ready Player One: REroll
by TWOxACROSS
Summary: In the aftermath of the battle between the gunters and IOI for Halliday's Egg and the fate of the OASIS, a small party of friends comes to terms with the paradigm shift brought upon by the loss of their character progress and what to do now that the egg hunt has come to a close. This action/adventure story utilizes an experimental third- and first-person perspective shift.
1. 1: REpose

**REpose** _I get knocked down…_

The Clash at Castle Anorak would become one of the defining moments in the OASIS, the day Parzival found Halliday's Easter Egg. Players from all over the universe gathered on a single planet, Chthonia, to cross swords with the IOI Corporation, a soulless megacorp that became the de facto bad guy in the whole egg hunt. If the Man had won the vast fortune tied to the egg, it would have invariably made life worse, both within this virtual paradise, and without. The battle was such a big deal that later on they held an event on the anniversary of that day; a no-holds barred, knockdown, drag-out battle royale from field to castle to find the egg, and survive with it in hand to win. You could even win consolation prizes by taking out the AI mobs created to look like Sixer avatars: faceless, generic character models used by IOI employees, recreated in the event mostly just for everyone to beat on, and rub salt in the company's wounds. Permadeath was turned off in the fight so everyone could simply enjoy the thrill of it all, and participate without the risk of losing their avatar – unlike the actual battle.

The Clash at Castle Anorak was the defining moment in the OASIS because it meant a paradigm shift was on its way, but it was also the defining moment for many players, especially the gunters who spent their lives looking for that egg; people who consumed Halliday's pop culture mega-mix; people who created their identities off burnt out stars and played out games; people like me and my party.

* * *

"Cor, why the hell did you bring us here?" a man in a pointed wizard hat said, shuffling under his cloak that dragged to the ground.

"Oh c'mon, you don't want to help out? Bash in some Sixer heads?" Cor, a young man in a trench coat, said as he crossed his arms.

He stared off from the cliff they stood on to survey the amassing army of avatars below, all surrounding a black castle in the distance. Behind Cor and his friends lay a veritable parking lot of vehicles from every corner of the universe, modeled after everything from the commonplace Millennium Falcon to the rather unique house from _The Wizard of Oz_.

"I'm all for cooking some Sixers, but this is crazy. And what? All so some _rando_ can get to the egg?"

Cor sighed. "Ten, there was no way we were gonna be the ones to get the egg. That ship sailed a long time ago."

"Not all of us gave up on the hunt, man. We were ready to take on whatever Halliday threw at us."

"This from the guy who couldn't even get the copper key," a woman in a power suit said, clapping her metal-covered left hand on the cannon on her right arm.

"Whatever… _Joust_ is stupid," Ten muttered.

"Doesn't matter, Sixers stopped everyone below them and the High Five on the scoreboard anyway," another young woman said, brushing the skirt of her flamboyantly-colored maid outfit.

"So then the best thing for us to do is help them. You want IOI to get the egg?" Cor opened his arms wide, displaying the predicament beyond the sea of avatars to the castle, nestled beneath a blue bubble that IOI goons had erected to keep people away.

"I'd rather _we_ got the egg," Ten replied. "We were gonna share it, remember?"

"Yeah, but that's not on the table anymore," Jeena said.

Cor turned. His friends leaned against his car, modeled after the _Ghostbusters II_ 's Ecto-1. Unlike most vehicles in the OASIS, the only modifications were a skull and crossbones motif where the iconic logo would be; a matte black paintjob with red fins and chrome detailing; and a hover feature you could get for completing a _Back to the Future II_ quest. I called it the "Ectoskeleton" because despite being in my late twenties and single, I have a death grip on dad humor. It wasn't much of a car, but it was all Cor needed, just like his friends leaning against it.

Jeena, clad in her purple chrome power suit, had been a close friend for years within the OASIS, so we always had each other's back. We called her "Jeen the Machine," she hated it; Tenebris, the two of us picked up while questing, he loved wizards from the moment he read his first pdf of _Harry Potter_ when he was a kid. We were never quite sure how old he was, but he complained enough to either be sixteen or sixty; and Mad_Donna, we all met her on a gunter forum. She was obsessed with pop music, especially from the 80s and 90s, which then bled into the Asian scene, where they retained the appeal of those previous decades, even while tastes changed in the west. Mads didn't reveal much about herself, other than loving to tell people she was actually a guy, if only to see their reactions, given her overly cute avatar, which he tried to make look like some old Korean popstar.

These nut jobs were my party, my friends.

"At least we have each other," Cor said. "Mads, how many pop songs are about at least having each other?"

"Damn near every one of 'em Cor, except for that stuff from Dead or Alive; they were really weird," Mads said.

"See, who needs a half-a-trillion dollars when I've got you chuckleheads?"

"I'm worth at least a million myself," Mads said, winking.

The army of avatars began to cheer as a giant robot burst through the atmosphere headfirst, throwing its feet forward to make a hard landing off in the distance, near the castle. The impact was felt even on the cliff some distance away. People started screaming "Par-zi-val!" while others still in their vehicles revved whatever motors they had.

"Okay…that was kinda cool," Cor muttered.

"Eh, it was alright," Jeena said.

"Do you think he did that superhero landing on purpose?" Mads laughed.

A booming voice came in over speakers on the IOI ships floating above the castle, the voice of some jagoff from IOI named Sorrento. None of us were really listening. Others booed and revved their engines again.

"We should probably get ready," Jeena said.

An ear-splitting whine of feedback on another microphone cut through the air, followed by a younger voice saying "You're wrong, Sorrento. We're coming in. At noon. All of us."

Avatars all around began to cheer.

"Shit…noon?" Ten said.

"Yeah, that's what it said in the email," Jeena said.

"That's two minutes from now!" someone else in the crowd behind the party yelled.

I glanced at the clock in the corner of my HUD. 11:58am. Why do we have to cut these things so damn close?

"Yop, time to go." Cor said. "Get in the hearse or I'm leaving you here!"

Mads and Ten opened the passenger-side doors, and Jeena moved towards the Ectoskeleton's back. Cor ran and slid hip-first across the car's hood and swung into the driver's seat. Cars and ships roared to life, lifting off the ground and orienting towards the castle. Cor turned the wheel and the hearse lulled forward until the edge of the cliff was out of view.

"Geeze, not so close Cor, we'll slide right off the cliff!" Mads said, throwing her hands onto the dashboard to brace herself.

Cor reached back over his shoulders, pulling the hood of his coat and a skull-faced gasmask down over his head and face.

"Somethin' somethin' we don't need roads, right Mads?" Cor said, cocking his head playfully.

Cor flicked a switch on the dashboard, and the hearse shook as the hover module kicked in. The car lifted off the ground and the wheels tilted down on their axels into the dirt, small thrusters igniting from within the rims.

"How are we supposed to even get in the castle with that shield still up?" Jeena asked clicking buttons on her arm cannon.

"Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ what the hell is _that_?!" Ten yelled, his arm extending from the backseat to point ahead.

A silver monstrosity grew near the front of the castle, towering over the avatars and giant robots standing at the ready.

"Godzilla?" Cor said.

"Actually, it's _Mecha_ godzilla," Jeena replied.

"Don't mansplain me, woman," Cor snapped.

Seconds later, another robot formed from five smaller ones that appeared next to Mechagodzilla.

"Oh…and they have a Voltron," Mads said flatly.

"Where the hell is everyone getting these robots?" Cor cried.

"What, are you jealous?" Jeena said from the back, her own helmet clapping shut over her face, the visor glowing orange when it closed.

"Are you _not_?" Cor said.

The giant robots all paused, staring each other down as a cacophony of weapons and vehicles clamored around them. When my clock read 12:00 on the dot, an explosion erupted from the back of Castle Anorak, in a small weapons depot that IOI had set up. The shield surrounding the castle fell as the light of the explosion subsided, shattering like glass that could be heard for miles as everyone fell silent.

"Holy…the shield is…" Ten trailed off.

"This is some shit, huh?" Mads said.

"Hold on to your butts!" Cor slammed his foot into the accelerator, the Ectoskeleton shooting forward as part of the massive wave of chrome and jet fire flowing down the cliffside.

Missiles and fireballs arced like party ribbons through the air, bolts of lightning flashed from sky to ground, and battle cries reached the heavens as the sea of avatars met with the IOI Sixers. The Ectoskeleton slid down the embankment of the cliff and Cor switched on the sirens to get people's attention, so they could get the hell out of the way. Avatars parted like the Red Sea as the party made their way to the frontline.

"So uh…what's the plan guys?" Mads asked, her arms still braced against the dashboard.

"We're gonna drive right up to the Sixers, and show 'em a good time," Cor answered.

"Yeah, no I got that, but I mean like…do we have some sort of battle plan, or…?"

"Battle plan!" Ten laughed.

"Stay close to the car, that's our rally point. Use it for cover, hit the sirens if things get real hairy and we'll come runnin'. We can strap on the proton packs if we need to throw down more firepower."

"Can let 'em go nuclear if things get real bad, too," Ten said.

"It won't come to that," Cor snapped. "Just stay together, and if you see a Sixer, give 'em a makeover."

"Oh ho, I've got just the thing for that!" Mads said, lifting a shotgun up across her chest.

"HOLD ON!" Cor yelled.

The wall of avatars rushing by on either side of the car gave way to a wasteland of unclaimed items, slowly spinning inches above the ground with piles of gold coins, each marking the graves of fallen avatars. Sixers trampled about blasting and swinging away indiscriminately with stock weapons IOI could easily pay to supply. The Ectoskeleton smashed into a small squadron of featureless Sixer avatars, and Cor spun the wheel, throwing the hearse's backend out. The broadside of the car crushed a few more Sixers, and Cor and Ten leaned out their windows as the car came to a stop. Cor unloaded a torrent of nigh-automatic gunfire from one of his two 92fs pistols, as Ten loosed a torrent of mystifying shots from his magic wand. Jeena flew out of the hearse's back hatch and landed in a roll, sliding onto her feet and letting her arm cannon do the talking with a low, thunderous voice. Mads jumped onto the hood and took an encroaching Sixer's head clean off with her shotgun.

"Mads, lay down a tasty beat!" Cor called as he and Ten leapt from the car.

"I've got just the thing!" Mads smirked.

" _Not_ Erasure," Cor snapped, drawing his second pistol from beneath his coat.

"Boooo you pleb," Mads said, drawing a microphone stand from behind her.

She pressed a switch on the mic, and hidden lights bedazzling the stand lit up. A steady, energetic drumbeat kicked in as a spotlight shot down from the sky on Mads, widening to encompass a large area around the party, the Ectoskeleton, and plenty of Sixers and Avatars. Spaceships and fighter jets flown by players streaked overhead towards the castle, and a piano tune erupted to accompany the drumbeat.

"That's a good one," Cor said.

It was Bonnie Tyler's _Holding Out for a Hero_ , and more than simply playing a tune, Mads was casting a persistent spell. As long as her party stayed within range to hear the song, they received powerful benefits to strengthen their avatar's combat performance. Mads had customized all her bardsongs to sync up with her favorite pop songs, and while, at first, we hated it, it really grew on us.

As she laughed and danced, Mads began pointing at other avatars nearby, inviting them to our party so they too could receive the benefits of her bardsong. I watched in my display as our party list quickly grew to its maximum, each name accompanied by a handful of icons denoting increases to health, attack power, and defense. A few people in the party chat quickly threw out messages like "thanks for the invite" and "let's kick some sixer ass." I replied "Be sure to keep Mads safe so the buffs stay up," as Sixers began to swarm around the Ectoskeleton to clash with the incoming wave of gunters.

Cor blasted holes through Sixers, dipping and spinning to slide between their attacks. As a few came up on either side, he waved his hand to one phalanx, dousing them all in an array of putrid, green bubbles, and then jumped back over the other group, spinning in midair to spray the Sixers in a hail of gunfire from his twin pistols. With one Sixer left standing from his assault, Cor grabbed him by the neck, using him as a human shield against incoming fire unleashed by the other group, which he infected with a poisonous "damage over time" spell. The grappled Sixer's body held out long enough for the poison to do its work, and one by one the other Sixer avatars doubled over and fell to the ground like soggy pizza. Cor then bent the Sixer in his arm over and drilled a hole into his helmet with a single shot. His form broke apart into a cascade of gold coins over Cor's knee.

Jeena pivoted in place, delivering plasma shots to any Sixers that got close from any angle. As the herd thinned out, a few Sixers hesitated. The barrel of Jeena's cannon sprouted open, and she whipped her arm forward, extending an electric tether that snagged one of the retreating Sixers. She reeled him in and then tossed the Sixer overhead with her mechanized strength, raising her arm cannon over her head to obliterate him in a plasmatic blast, only errant pixels and coins raining down and bouncing off her gleaming armor.

Mads continued to dance on the hood while fending off Sixers with her shotgun, her choreography mixing steps, hip fires, shimmies, and pump action. Each time she could match an action to the beat, she conferred a stronger buff to the party with her dance moves, or added massive damage to her attacks. As one song subsided, she had another queued up and soon Michael Jackson's _Beat It_ roared above the din of the fight. However, her buffs could only do so much as the battle flared around her. The problem with corporate goons is there's always enough money for more, and the Sixers were in no short supply, sometimes rushing a single player and leaving nothing behind but pixels and coins. Whatever form of healing Mads could provide could never stack up to five Sixers ganking a single gunter taken unawares. A character name in my party list flashed red as their hit points dropped to zero.

"Stay together!" Cor yelled. "Don't get cocky just because they're weaker than you."

Another name went red on my list. We were dropping like flies.

"My heals can't handle everyone at once, get yourself topped up if you can!" Mads called to the wounded party.

"There's more coming from the west!" A party member said, just before their own name went red. Cor looked over his shoulder to see their avatar explode into a pile of coins.

"I've got my hands full over here, they're pressing in. Jeen! Can you handle the west?"

"On it!"

Cor holstered his pistols beneath his coat, then pulling out a polished skull, holding it by the small bit of spine connected to it. He held it ahead of him and the mouth of the skull opened. A shining, curved blade sprouted from between the jaws, and an intricate shaft extended from the spinal column. Cor held the massive scythe in both hands, winding up for an attack as the Sixers rushed in. He slid between their ranks and spun around, the scythe cleaving through Sixers and blasting away anyone who wasn't immediately killed. As the Sixers climbed to their feet, Cor waved his left hand at them. Another round of toxic bubbles fluttered around the Sixers' bodies, inflicting them with a poison that slowly sapped their hit points.

A reward for a quest involving the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the scythe, taken from Death, worked best when paired with Pestilence's Book of Plagues, which granted Cor the spells to inflict opponents with ailments that reduced parameters. This then made them easier to take down with the scythe, which dealt more damage itself to ailing opponents. The Sixers struggled with the poison running through their digital veins, but didn't last long anyway when Cor zipped up to each one, slicing them using a unique attack that allowed the user to rush to a poisoned target.

"Sixers south, I couldn't hold them. Sorry," another player said, their name flashing red in the party list as well.

Cor watched as yet another phalanx of Sixers approached, and he reached for what looked like an old flintlock pistol strapped to his chest. He leveled the archaic firearm at the incoming group, and pulled the hammer back. Intricate scrollwork on the barrel began to glow a dull orange, but Cor's finger hovered over the trigger. These bullets were incredibly hard to come by, rare and expensive, and I only had one left. If I was going to use the last one, I suppose there's no better time than the battle for the fate of the OASIS.

Cor squeezed the trigger, and his arm shot backwards while his upper body arched from the recoil. A purple ball of energy hit a Sixer squarely in the chest and threw him back into the crowd. A pulse grew from the fallen Sixer, turning into a singularity that sucked in any other IOI goons nearby. When the singularity collapsed, it exploded in a blast of negative color, sending coins raining down onto the battlefield.

"Ten! Hold them off for a moment!" Jeena called.

Ten stepped up as Jeena slid away, and he swiped his magic wand. The earth underfoot rose in jagged spikes, crawling into the incoming phalanx of Sixers. Another flick of his wrist thrust a slab of earth upwards, launching several Sixers into the air where they were then pelted by a volley of fireballs that left nothing but coins to fall to the ground. Sixers stumbled over upturned terrain with swords drawn, only to be pushed away by gusts of wind from Ten's hands. When a Sixer carrying a heavy laser rifle made his way to the forefront, Ten threw his hands to his sides, projecting a clear blue bubble that deflected the automatic laser fire back into the crowd of encroaching Sixers.

"Whatever you're gonna do, now is a great time to do it, Jeena!"

Jeena reached into the back of the Ectoskeleton and pulled out one of the four proton packs by its straps. As a new group of Sixers began to approach, she wound her arm back. The mechanical muscles of her power suit coiled and whirred, and then she threw the pack, far overhead towards the Sixers. She aimed her arm cannon and fired a volley at the pack, hitting it squarely several times before it fell into the crowd. Moments later the pack melted down and exploded into a small, white hot mushroom cloud, vaporizing much of the advancing Sixers. A wave of gunters arrived to bolster the opposition against the Sixers, cheering at all the explosions and jumping into the fray.

"Are you sure that was a good idea? Those proton packs are rare," Ten said, freezing some Sixers with a blast of ice.

"What do I care? That was your pack," Jeena said, lightly punching Ten in the shoulder as she charged up power in her cannon.

"Wha…wait…?"

"Chill out, Ten."

"Oh, you were kidding? So that _wasn't_ mine?"

"What? No, that was yours, but we're probably gonna die here anyway." Jeena blasted a Sixer through the chest.

"WHAT?!"

"Remember what Halliday said? 'You can't take it with you.'"

"Then why didn't you blow _yours_ up?!" Ten threw his arms up.

"Why would I do that? Didn't you hear – those proton packs are rare?"

Sixers began to thin out, and other gunters were making short work of them in the surrounding areas. I wouldn't have necessarily called our battle a success, but Cor, Ten, Mads, and Jeena were still standing, and that was all that mattered.

"Good work everyone, let's regroup and get ready for another round," Cor said. "There's more Sixers what need their dumb helmets smashed in."

"An' I still need me one hundred Sixer scalps!" Mads shouted, reloading her shotgun.

"How is the battle at the castle going?" Jeena asked.

"I can't see any of those robots anymore," Cor replied, squinting at Castle Anorak.

Suddenly, there was an earsplitting boom. It sounded like the entire universe was cracking in half.

And then we all died.

* * *

A white flash filled my view.

"AH! What the hell?!" I shouted as I shoved my headset off my eyes.

I looked around my room and at my computer equipment for some sort of problem. Everything was okay, the network was up, the computer was fine, whatever happened was inside the OASIS. I took a deep breath and sighed, pulling my goggles back down and reentering the virtual world. The words GAME OVER floated in my view, the party list reading every player dead. The screen faded to black, and I was soon presented with the option to start a new character. I loaded up my saved appearance data, and was greeted by the most basic of avatar ensembles – a black t-shirt and jeans. The level 42 avatar "Cor_Leonid," decked out in a leather trench coat for slaying a goblin king, Death's own scythe, and myriad other fantastic paraphernalia, all gone. He was reduced to a schmuck just logging in for the very first time.

My avatar rematerialized in what amounted to the starting area of the OASIS, a virtual mall on the planet Incipio. It acted like a launch page for the entirety of the system and its numerous features. People too poor to go anywhere exciting slummed around in this place, watching gunters and high-profile avatars wander around like superstars. It wasn't necessarily a bad place, but as an experienced player, there was a certain level of embarrassment to log in from there in a t-shirt. If I hadn't been coming down from an adrenaline rush, I probably would have been a lot more embarrassed, but I was too amped up and too confused to care. What had happened on Chthonia?

Other newly minted avatars slowly began to flood into the mall like Cor had, and he moved away to an empty storefront to get some space. Whatever had happened to Cor, happened to a lot of other gunters, apparently. People gathered around video terminals, chattering about the new arrivals and what was most likely going on at Chthonia. As more new avatars began to file into the mall, Cor made his way to one of the higher floors, which also met at eye level with a Jumbotron-style set of monitors. The infamous scoreboard used to rank those in the egg hunt was displayed, and above that was a live feed of the guy we all followed to Chthonia, Parzival, playing some old video game. He was in the middle of the last set of obstacles laid out before someone could reach the egg. A part of me was glad I wasn't the one trying to do that, and to know that your entire attempt was being broadcast? No thanks.

I opened my friends list to see that Ten, Mads, and Jeena were all still online, but wherever they were, was news to me. Then, I reflexively went to open my inventory, something I often did out of habit whenever my menu was open, but this time I hesitated. I knew what I would find there, but it took me a moment to ready myself for it. As long as my inventory was closed, the truth wasn't a reality, even in this virtual one. I had Schrodinger's inventory, but it was only a matter of time before I would have had to look, so I bit the bullet. After clicking the inventory tab, an empty list greeted me.

I was a level one scrub. Cor had no weapons, armor, or items. No money, and no vehicle keys, not that I expected the Ectoskeleton was still around. I could only assume that whatever wiped us out also destroyed my wheels. I felt gutted. Three years of progression, of hard work, just gone, like bytes in the wind. The hysterical wailing of a few other avatars meant that we all truly shared the same fate. Someone shouted about the Cataclyst, a rare item capable of derezzing an entire sector in the OASIS' universe. It had recently been purchased at auction and was most likely used by some Sixers as a last resort to prevent gunters from getting to the egg. Another avatar had some colorful, and honestly quite creative insults to level at IOI. I glanced back at the scoreboard, and then to the entrance of the mall where a sea of new, level one avatars began shuffling in.

They were all my brothers in arms at Castle Anorak, returning home from the frontlines. However, as with any battle, it took something irreplaceable from us all. We were the t-shirt-wearing ghosts of gunters past now.

Parzival was the OASIS' only hope.


	2. 2: REspawn

**REspawn** _But I get up again_

It took a little bit for me to get in touch with my friends. Log ins were slow as there was suddenly a massive amount of congestion in the mall. Everyone planned on meeting up at my private chat room when they finally got back into the OASIS. As a personal space that only those I gave permission to could enter, it was like a hideout where Ten, Jeena, Mads, and I could meet up, hang out, and plan for adventures. Luckily, it was an account-based feature, so even though my character was obliterated, and the gear on him lost, I still had this little Fortress of Solitude, and whatever I didn't take with me, which honestly wasn't much. A few old swords hanging on the wall, some samurai armor I wore for a time collecting digital dust in the corner, more odd pieces sat in an item box in the corner. My place was an eclectic mix of stuff I picked up from quests, with a lot of old movie props mixed in. The pièce de résistance was the giant amplifier from the beginning of _Back to the Future_ (unexploded) that took up one entire wall with its giant silver speaker, outlined by that cool blue ring. Jeena had always wanted to decorate the place, but I refused, said it would mess with my feng shui.

Mads was the first to arrive. She must have stopped by her own little storage space first because she was wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt (you know the one), a dress with a poofy skirt, fingerless gloves, and untied combat boots.

"You look like Cyndi Lauper on laundry day…" Cor muttered.

"Just about," she replied, collapsing into one of the four recliners in the room.

Jeena showed up next, wearing the same t-shirt and jeans combo as Cor. She seemed pretty uncomfortable without her power armor. Even when she didn't wear it, she still wore a cybernetic bodysuit with a tactical harness. Now, she was just a plain Jane. It was weird seeing her like that, like when you see your teacher outside of school. She sat down in another recliner, and let out a long sigh. Mads let out her own sigh of agreement.

"Any word on how Parzival's doing?" Jeena asked.

"No idea. Guess we should check," Cor said, waving his hand to the big screen TV placed in front of the recliners.

The TV blinked on, and the news was abuzz with a live feed of the scoreboard, but the list of names and numbers was gone. All that remained was a picture of Parzival holding up the egg with the words "Parzival Wins!" below it.

"Wow…he actually did it," Jeena said.

"IOI must be pissed," Mads laughed.

"Looks like that rando got the egg."

Cor, Mads, and Jeena turned to the door. Tenebris stood in the entrance, dressed in the same black t-shirt.

"Yeah. Welcome back," Cor said. "This is some big news."

Ten walked into the room, setting his hand on the headrest of Jeena's chair.

"It'll be interesting to see what happens next," Jeena said.

"What do we do now, then?" Ten asked.

"Guess there's no point in being a gunter, now that there's no more egg to hunt." Jeena thought aloud.

"Yeah, shit…" Cor muttered.

"Wait, what the hell are you upset about?" Ten balked.

"Chill out," Mads said.

"No, it's okay," Cor replied.

"You gave up on the hunt!" Ten pointed his finger to Cor. "So what are you upset about?"

"We all lost a lot today, Ten," Cor said.

"Yeah sure, we all lost our avatars, but you didn't lose out on your chance to get the egg. Not like the three of us!"

"Ten…only two of us had two of the three keys we needed. Parzival was way too far ahead of us, and so were the Sixers," Mads said.

"So? Then it was fine for Cor to drag us all out there to Chthonia? Why? You haven't suggested a gunter outing in like a year and a half. You always just tagged along to ours because we could use the help."

"I just thought that maybe if we couldn't find the egg, then at least we could…I dunno, end the hunt in style."

"You didn't care about the egg hunt until there was nothing left to care about," Ten frowned.

"C'mon Ten," Jeena said.

"No. Right, Cor?" Ten snapped. "Admit it."

"Fine! You're right."

"It's like you just wanted to piggyback off all of us without doing any of the work. And you expected us to split that money with you?"

It was a common occurrence for actual gunter clans to sign legally-binding contracts that stated they all shared Halliday's fortune if they helped find the egg. We weren't a clan, or nearly as serious about it to bring in a lawyer, it was only a promise among friends. Thinking back on it though, it might have been foolish of us to trust people over the internet regarding something as serious as half-a-trillion dollars, or perhaps it was telling that we knew we'd never be the ones to find the egg in the first place. How serious were we, really?

"Hey, I never would have asked for anything, Ten. I was just happy to help out in the end."

"Then why bother? Why'd you even start hunting in the first place?"

"Are you kidding, everyone wanted to be a part of that hunt. I would have been insane not to try!"

"Well then why did you give up!? Why did you gather us all together, and then just slide back onto the bench!?"

"Because I just couldn't take it anymore!" Cor shouted. "The more I thought about it, the more I didn't want the responsibility tied to that egg. The controlling share of Gregarious? Literally the fate of the entire OASIS, on the shoulders of some twenty-something _nothing_ from Podunk, Wisconsin? That was just too much…"

"But all that money, you were fine just giving that up?" Mads asked, rocking in her recliner.

"I have a decent little life here. I have a job; the farm industry is still standing so the area has food; we haven't been nuked off the map. I was comfortable, and I couldn't sacrifice that for the infinitesimally slim chance that I could find that egg. I couldn't make egg hunting my job. The worst feeling was that, I love a lot of this stupid 80s junk, it was fun. I love the OASIS, but I wasn't having fun with it anymore."

"Did you feel like you needed to grow up or something?" Jeena asked.

"No, it was just…I wasn't binge-watching old movies to enjoy a simpler time, or playing video games to have fun – it was work. I was no different than some tool at IOI, scrutinizing every single second of every single song, movie, or TV show from sixty-some years ago. I was a Sixer without the serial number, and at that point, I thought I might as well have just become an indent and worked my life away in search of the egg. The moment I thought that – that I should just become a Sixer and get paid for all that work – that's when I knew I had to slow my roll. It floored me that I could get so burnt out on egg hunting that I figured if I was gonna keep doing it I should just become everything I hated.

"If I didn't make a change I would've gone insane, and I would have ghosted on you guys. I had to tear myself away from the OASIS a bit, so that I could still find a modicum of meaning in it. I wanted to have fun, and I realized that the only fun I was having was with you guys, so…that's what I focused on. I quit thinking that hunting for that egg would solve all my problems and got a job, so that I could support my time in the OASIS, to be with you guys."

Ten shuffled uncomfortably. Cor tapped his fist against his thigh.

"I'm sorry I gave up on the hunt, Ten. But I did it so I wouldn't give up on you."

Ten sighed.

"Alright…I get it. I'm sorry man," Ten shook his head. "This whole day has been crazy."

"No, I'm sorry. I never really told you all why I stopped. I figured that as long as I was still helping you guys, it didn't really matter."

"Well that was intense," Mads said.

"Are you guys gonna kiss now?" Jeena jeered.

"He wishes," Ten muttered, sitting down in one of the free recliners. "Question still stands, though. What the hell do we do now?"

"It's strange." Jeena chuckled. "We spent so much time thinking about how amazing it would be to get the egg, we never really thought about what we would do if we didn't."

"To be real honest, I never really expected to get the egg either. I just wanted to mess with IOI," Mads said.

Mads was a self-professed "Sixer-fixer," and more than a few times if she had heard there were Sixers anywhere near us, she was inclined to take rash actions. To her, they were no different than generic mobs you killed for a pittance in any other game. We had to make a rule that we wouldn't go after any party of Sixers that was larger than ours, after a near-suicidal run-in.

"Well…now that the egg's been found, IOI doesn't have much of a use for hunting either." Jeena said.

"Shit, you're right!" Mads shot upright in her chair.

"The time's they are a-changin'," Cor said.

"Eh…it was fun while it lasted." Mads said, sinking back into her recliner.

"Wonder what will happen to their oology department. That was a cushy gig, from what I hear."

"Can we not sympathize with the faceless goons, at least, they were still a pain in the ass," Mads replied.

"Well then let's come up with a plan," Ten said.

"What plan? For what?" Jeena said.

"I dunno. _Something_."

"I think before we try to make a plan, we should probably take stock of what we have," Cor suggested.

"Look at us, we have nothing," Jeena said.

"Mostly," Mads replied, fluttering her skirt. "But do you want it back?"

"Huh?"

"Do you want it back? All your stuff."

"It'd be nice," Cor said.

"Then maybe that's what we should do. We lost a lot in that fight at Castle Anorak, and I ain't keen on wearing this forever."

"That's a lot of quests," Ten said.

"And a lot money, some of that stuff was rare," Jeena added.

"We'll make it back, _as_ we quest." Mads pointed.

"You wanna redo everything that we did before? That stuff took us years."

"So? It took us years because we were dicking around looking for the egg, sometimes with month-long gaps of doing jack-all. And if it takes us years again, who cares? We'll be doing _something_."

Cor nodded, a smile growing on his face. "I love this plan, I'm excited to be a part of it!"

"Yeheah! So, our mission: if you choose to accept it, is to reclaim our former glory!" Mads stood up from her chair and drew a crowbar from her waist like a sword, holding it aloft. "Who's with me?"

Cor grabbed a katana on display from the rack hanging on his wall.

"Let's do it! Let's get back what's ours!" Cor said, raising his sword to Mads' crowbar.

Ten jumped up and pulled a magic wand from his pocket, raising it to the sword and crowbar. The three looked to Jeena, who slowly rose from her chair and grinned. She held out her hand and stuck out her finger and thumb like a gun, adding it to the crossing of implements.

"That's what I'm talkin' 'bout," Mads nodded.

"And hey, maybe we can get some of those kick-ass robots, too," Cor smirked.

"Hell yeah man, and maybe we'loooh GAWD _MURDER_?!" Mads eyes widened when she caught a glimpse of the TV.

Everyone's attention turned the screen, where it played news of an IOI exec being detained on murder charges, the chyron suggesting he was responsible for killing one of the leaders on the scoreboard.

"Geeze, it really is a good thing the hunt ended," Cor muttered.

* * *

Operation: Get Back was go, but first we needed to make a list of everything we had lost, and how we might be able to actually get it back. Jeena, Ten, Mads, and Cor sat down in a recliner each as the TV continued to play whatever story an anchor could wring out of the little amount of information slowly coming out after the discovery of Halliday's Easter egg. Each avatar had a digital window open that floated in front of their face, scrolling through wikis and forums to compile a list of the what, when, and where.

Tenebris had a back-up wand in his own off-character storage like the one he had with him on Chthonia, so he was still okay as far as his weapon was concerned. What he was missing most was his spells. He had collected tome after grimoire for whatever spells he could find, some he wasn't even high enough level to use when he was at his peak. Tracking them all down would be a bit difficult, let alone remembering them all. In the end, he had simply copied a list of every known spellbook people had found in the OASIS, and organized them by level.

All Jeena cared about was getting back her power armor. It was a simple series of _Metroid_ -themed quests spanning a few planets in the same sector, but we'd need to hitch a ride or get our own to get there, so we were worried it might be a while before we were able to help her get her second skin. Everything else she had, simply required saving up some money for, or was fine to be replaced. I lent her one of Cor's old swords, and she "borrowed" the samurai armor herself. No complaint there though. Even without her long-range arm cannon, what matter most was that she could take the hits, and a set of armor would help her feel much more at ease. The arm cannon's upgrade modules would come afterwards, giving Jeena a bigger arsenal to work with.

Mads set her sights on the bombastically flamboyant maid outfit she was wearing on Chthonia. It was a quest made up to require gathering a considerable amount of random junk, all referenced in the _PONPONPON_ music video by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu; definitely outside of Halliday's wheelhouse, but he wasn't the only one who made quests in the OASIS. Just about anyone with the know-how, time, and resources could. The whole thing would end up as her own, OASIS-wide scavenger hunt. The microphone was its own, separate quest after obtaining all the materials for the dress, so luckily Mads' questline would conclude in a more focused manner. She could always get a decent shotgun off the market, and she already had the crowbar. The songbooks that contained her bardsongs were mostly quest rewards, but it's not like we were going to be any strangers to questing.

My eclectic mix took the cake though. The leather trenchcoat wouldn't be much of a problem, slaying a Goblin King in a simple enough quest, it just required us to be a higher level. The skull-themed gasmask was a creation from an online boutique, which just meant it would cost a lot of money to get. Even more so if it had gone "out of print." If I ever wanted to get the Ectoskeleton back, I'd need to save up a lot more money just to buy the base vehicle, but mods wouldn't be hard to come by afterwards, like the paint job and hover kit. Although…maybe it was time for a different set of wheels altogether. The obvious choice would be a DeLorean, an all-too-common ride in the OASIS, especially since Parzival's became so popular. Unfortunately, the thing only seated two people, and I didn't want to screw over two of my closest friends, so I'd have to think of something else. Saving money will be easy enough, once we start questing again. However, the weapons are where things would get really dicey.

My favorite 92fs pistols I could get from anywhere. The gun was used by nearly every action hero from the 80s and well into the 90s, so I could have bought a new pair easily, but that wouldn't get me the _best_ ones. You see, Cor managed to receive a 92fs from two different quests; one a recreation of _Die Hard_ , where the players were stripped of their gear and had to survive like John McClain had; and the other a recreation of John Woo's bullet ballet _Hard Boiled_ , requiring the players to make it through some action-packed shoot-out levels like a warehouse and hospital. The _Die Hard_ pistol came with an enchantment to never run out of ammo if you were still engaged in combat, while the _Hard Boiled_ pistol dealt extra damage when used in a pair; it was like they were meant to be together, and they were meant to be in Cor's hands.

The Book of Plagues and Death's scythe, Headache, both came from a quest on a planet called Revelation, devoted to quests involving end of the world scenarios. The quest itself was a fairly generic challenge of finding and defeating the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Back then, Cor only ever defeated the first and fourth horsemen, Pestilence and Death. War and Famine gave the party a run for their money, and they never quite got back to it. The quest had remained in Cor's logbook, and it was a bit of a sore spot whenever I noticed it. Thanks to the Cataclyst, though, even that was wiped away. A clean slate whether I liked it or not.

The flintlock pistol was a rare drop from a pirate-themed quest involving a ghost ship on the planet Skullduggery. Even after finding the pistol itself, the ammunition I used with it would be a constant exercise in patience. They were powerful magic bullets forged specifically for old-timey firearms, but there was a catch – while I could buy any random flintlock pistol off the market, using those magic bullets in one would destroy the gun. The pistol from the ghost ship was a magical item, which made it indestructible, one of the few pistols in the OASIS that was able to shoot those rounds. It wouldn't be a difficult quest to complete, but finding the ghost ship itself could take some time. The planet was mostly water, so the ship could show up just about anywhere after dusk, and having a boat or flying ship on hand would be paramount.

The magical bullets themselves were a random item that could drop from anything within an OASIS-designated magic zone, areas of the virtual universe where fantasy-based items could appear and operate. Some people have gone their entire time in the OASIS never finding a single magic bullet, while others were able to make small fortunes off of the few they did come across. Because of the rarity of the bullets that made the pistol worth using, I put it low on the priority list, if at all. I had told myself that if we happened to come across a magic bullet, I'd reconsider it, but I didn't hold my breath.

After about an hour of scouring the 'net and compiling their lists, they all compared what they had. Each avatar held out a window, each varying in size.

"Damn Cor…yours is long and varied," Mads said.

"Phrasing." Jeena chimed in.

"Guess while you guys were egg hunting, I was messing around just…treasure hunting," Cor's shoulders sank. "Sorry."

"For what? So you have more junk than we did. We've gotta get it back either way, and the more we need to do, the more money and experience we'll get out of it."

"Cor for confirmed carry," Jeena jabbed.

"Hey, I'll pull my own weight, you'll see," Cor said.

"Not in that getup, you won't," Ten pointed.

"We all shouldn't be talking, dressed as we are," Jeena replied.

"Hey, speak for yourselves," Mads said, standing up and flourishing her skirt. "I've still got some style."

"Oh, y'know what, Mads? I think I might have something for you." Cor rose from his chair and turned to the item box tucked away in the chatroom's corner. "I found it a long time ago. I meant to give it to you, but I forgot, and…well…it's sorta low level. Now though, it'll be a decent upgrade."

Cor turned back, holding a thin necktie with the design of piano keys cascading down its length.

"Oh my gee…is that a keyboard necktie?" Mads said.

"You betcha," Cor presented the tie to the idol. "It'll boost your bardsongs a bit, too."

"Hope you're ready for some new tunes, too. Just downloaded some new stuff from Tiffany, apparently she made a comeback in the late tens."

"Yeah…as a country singer," Jeena laughed.

"She…what? Ew…" Mads' shoulders sank.

"Hey, got anything in that bag for us, Santa?" Ten said.

Cor turned back to the item box, and threw a gray wad of cloth over his shoulder at Ten.

"There Ten, that'll do, yeah?"

Ten caught the gray suit and held it out by its shoulders. An original _Ghostbusters_ jumpsuit, nothing entirely special, aside from extra spiritual defense (of course), and slime resistance.

"Oh wow, thanks man."

Once Ten had donned the suit and zipped it up, the black nametag on the left lapel filled in his full name with red thread. He drew his magic wand and posed.

"How do I look, nice?"

"Oh baby," Mads said, clapping.

It hadn't occurred to me at the time, but giving someone with a wand an old _Ghostbusters_ jumpsuit was rather spot-on, considering Dan Aykroyd's original screenplay for the film involved dudes with magic wands that travelled through time and space to bust ghosts. As astounding a film as that sounds, it apparently would have been like four hours long and cost billions of dollars to make, so it got rewritten into something much more palatable. Looks like Ten would be carrying on a bit of that legacy, though.

"And for you, little Jeena…"

"It's okay." Jeena held up her hand, and an assault rifle materialized in it. "I've already got myself something. Haven't used this baby in years."

"Oh, so you don't want this fashionable tactical vest?" Cor asked, holding up a jumble of Kevlar, straps, and pads. What it lacked in the defense she could get from the samurai armor, wearing it atop the armor would still infer some benefits to her poise, with some bonuses to reloading and ammo capacity.

Jeena gasped. "It's hard to say 'no' to a tac vest."

"Girl's gotta accessorize, right?" Cor tossed the vest to Jeena.

"A man after my own heart." Jeena equipped the vest and pads, and inspected her arms and feet. "Already feeling a little more like myself."

"We gotta get you chromed up, ASAP. You made a good mirror," Mads said.

"And I guess there isn't much left for me," Cor said, pulling a red leather jacket from the box. "This'll have to do."

Michael Jackson's jacket from _Beat It_ wasn't much in the way of stats, but it was better than walking around like a low-level dork, with no actual extra defense.

"Oh man…this is weird," Ten said, looking at his window again. "It looks like the other three players from the High Five are…alive."

"What do you mean?" Jeena asked.

"Seems like Parzival has some crazy admin powers now. People on the forums are saying that he dropped the Sixers that were on the scoreboard with a wave of his hand or something. And the profiles for Art3mis, Shoto, and Aech still read them with all the stats they went into Chthonia with."

"So they weren't wiped out like the rest of us?" Mads said. "Maybe some sort of scoreboard immunity?"

"Nah, I don't think the cataclysm would discriminate like that, thing was just meant to level a sector and everything in it," Jeena said.

"How did Parzival survive, even?" Cor said, drawing the red jacket onto his frame.

"Y'think they cheated?" Ten said, a palpable disdain in his voice.

"I doubt it. Halliday was a genius programmer, wasn't he?" Cor shrugged. "Don't think he'd suffer an exploit in the OASIS, let alone in the quest to get his fortune."

"There's also a lot of stuff we don't know about in the later parts of the questline, maybe there was something that gave them an extra life or some junk," Jeena said, checking her rifle.

"And those robots," Cor muttered, holding out his katana.

Jeena flashed him a coquettish smile. "Still on that?"

"Woman, I'll be on that forever!" Cor said, rattling the sword in its scabbard.

"Must be nice to keep your avatar. Drag us all out there to some climactic battle, use us like cannon fodder while he wins the egg. Gets to keep kickin' even when someone tears the universe a new continuum, and the rest of us get turned into a fine dust."

"Oh Ten, if you didn't have anything to complain about, would you explode?" Mads teased.

"I'm just sayin' is all!" Ten said, holding his hands out, palms up, with a shrug.

"If it makes you feel any better, maybe we can see if the quest for the egg is still going, finally get you past _Joust_ ," Cor said.

"You just want to see if there's a robot in it for you!" Ten snapped.

"Why the hell am I the only one around here who is excited about the fact that there were giant robots?!"

"Aaaanyway, seems like we're all set, so what do we do first? Should we take a break, start tomorrow?" Jeena asked. "A lot's happened today."

"Nah, if I'm not playing I'll just being staring at newsfeeds," Ten said.

"Don't wanna angry up the blood, eh old man?" Mads poked Ten in the leg with her crowbar.

"What about 'porting fees?" Cor asked. "I can cover for a bit, but we might need to bum a ride from someone with a ship if we wanna get to someplace like Actio for those _Hard Boiled_ and _Die Hard_ quests."

"I miss your wheels…" Mads lamented.

"You said it, sister."

"We can cross that bridge when we get to it, for now let's just figure out what we want to do first," Jeena said.

"I just need spells, and Mads needs a bunch of legit junk. Looks like it'll come down to either getting that power armor for Jeena or start on some of Cor's gear."

"I think it will be a bit before we're ready to tackle the power armor questline. Let's start small," Jeena suggested.

"Maybe let's head back to Incipio, see what we can afford at the shops," Cor said. "Then maybe look into heading off to Tolkien and do that Goblin King quest?"

"Alright then. You ready to pop some goblin domes, Jeena?" Ten said.

"As I'll ever be," Jeena said, flexing and patting her bicep. "Let's go."

"Okay! Ensign, set a course for Incipio," Mads said.

Cor stood next to Mads, and turned her towards the chatroom's door. Mads yelled "Engage!" and Cor planted a foot into her backside, shoving her forward at the door. Jeena and Ten followed behind, their avatars all disappearing as they crossed the threshold. Cor chuckled and rested his katana across his shoulder.

"Here we go…again," he said, walking to the door.


	3. 3: REvive

**REvive** _You are never gonna keep me down_

The party gathered in the food court-like area of Incipio, but things didn't quite have the same feel as they used to. Where once there had always been a sense of wonder and fun, there now existed an undercurrent of tension as well. The population was a bit lower than normal, understandably that some people didn't want to log back into the game. Starting over can be a depressing thing. Of the players that were still logging in, the newly low-level ones tended to keep to themselves. Cor and his crew, however, had no time for that kind of unpleasantness, and stood around a table conversing with another player.

Cor shook hands with a slim man in a fitted suit, his face a mystery behind the black designer shades covering his eyes.

"You've got yourself a deal. Just let me know when you're ready to take off," the man said. "I'll go get ready. My ship is here."

The man shared a map coordinate with Cor, and then took his leave.

"Right," Cor said, waving to the man and turning back to his friends.

"You sure about this? Cutting Agent Smith over there in for whatever coin we find will leave us with less saved up," Ten asked, crossing his arms.

"It's either we cut a pilot in on our take, or we stay here and end up saving up even less," Cor replied.

"Until we pay a pilot in full, or get our own ship," Mads added.

"What matters is that we're making progress; the stronger we get, the more money we'll save up in the end, right?" Jeena said.

"And this Airheart dude seems like a trustworthy guy, right?" Cor said.

"Maybe…" Ten muttered. "Sure has some choice digs still."

"Are you legit upset about the people who _didn't_ lose something by not going to Chthonia?" Mads asked Ten.

"Maybe…"

"Don't be that guy, man."

In the days after the hunt's end, there was a growing disdain among some of the players who zeroed out for anyone who was still walking around with gear and levels. Born out of jealousy, it was strengthened by a crackpot theory that the people who hadn't been at Chthonia were IOI sympathizers; that they didn't want to fight; that they were really fine with IOI getting the egg; or worse yet, that they new IOI was going to use the cataclyst, so they stayed clear of the sector and didn't bother to warn anyone. Feeding into that were rumors of players coming to Chthonia in the aftermath of the cataclyst to swipe all the loot from everyone who fell there. Whether they were true, or even related, didn't matter. It generated a strange tension in the OASIS, as if there always had to be someone to hate, and with IOI sheepishly absent, all eyes turned to those who still had something to lose. The supposed rich cowards who sat by to watch the fate of the OASIS, instead of fighting like the rest of us.

"There's enough people losing their shit over losing their shit, don't join that mob," Jeena said.

"Lorraine, if I hear you shouting 'eat the rich,' I'll disown you," Cor said.

"Alright, alright. God you guys are pushy," Ten said.

"I push, because I love," Mads said, tickling Ten's neck. "And because it's funny when people fall over."

* * *

Foregoing any shopping on Incipio in order to save coin for when they really needed it, the party headed to Airheart's ship instead. Nestled at the far end of the port, what the pilot referred to as a modestly standard frame, was an innocent-looking, honey-yellow cargo plane with a red nose. Airheart guided everyone aboard with a servile politeness, and it didn't take long before the plane broke from Incipio's surface and into OASIS outer space. A twin propeller cargo plane navigating the black void of the universe would have been an extremely strange experience, had Cor and his companions not traveled those same stars in a flying hearse. The absurdity of it all made me miss the Ectoskeleton. Airheart set the course for Tolkien and wandered into the cargo area, leaning against the threshold to the cockpit.

"We've got a little bit until getting into Sector 3, so make yourselves comfortable," he said. "Feel free to move about the cabin."

"Right, thanks a lot," Cor said, nodding his head in appreciation.

Everyone rose from their seats, giving the ship another look.

"What has you all headed to Tolkien? If you don't mind me asking."

The party shuffled about the cabin.

"We're…questing," Ten muttered.

"Ah, some normal playtime huh? I suppose the OASIS is just an online platform again. No more egg and all that."

"Where were you when Parzival won the egg?" Mads asked.

"Me? I was stuck at work, doing nothing. Everyone was watching him finish the last gate."

"Well we were on Chthonia when it happened." Ten said.

An eyebrow rose from beneath Airheart's shades, then he nodded. "I see. I guess I was one of the lucky ones, too busy to log in just to zero out."

"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, right?" Mads laughed.

"You guys seem to be taking it well, though."

"For the most part," Mads muttered, nudging Ten.

"Gotta take it in stride, I guess. You lose your shit, you start over." Cor shrugged.

"Like Halliday said, 'you can't take it with you,' right?"

"You knew about Halliday?" Cor asked.

"Sure, but who didn't? What a guy. Sad to have seen him go. That hunt though, maybe it's for the best that it's finally over. It was fun while it lasted, at least."

"Were you in a clan? A gunter?" Jeena asked.

"Something like that, I learned a lot about the guy and his interests, but I didn't really get to do a lot of hunting – work and all."

"Guess that explains why you've got such fancy digs and you're still low level, huh?" Ten asked, a tinge of judgment in his voice.

"A corporate paycheck helps, yeah. I also like to play the chauffeur, easy enough to make coin on the side, see the sights. I like flying, too, so that's about all I get to do with my time in the OASIS. Can't buy a real plane, and fuel for it is…well…the OASIS provides."

"Must be some job. Where do you work?" Mads asked.

"Eh, it was information analysis, boring office stuff, really."

"Sounds boring," Ten said.

"You spend your workdays in a suit and then log into the OASIS to wear a suit?" Mads chuckled.

"A much nicer suit." Airheart smirked, pulling on his lapel.

"So you never got to hunt for the egg?" Cor asked.

"Nah, I did a lot of research, but it didn't go anywhere for a long time. Three years with zero progress certainly kills your drive. Although, part of me still thinks, maybe it would be fun to try the hunt, just for the hell of it. There's no egg, no fortune, but Halliday went through all the trouble to make that hunt. I'd like to see it firsthand."

"Firsthand?" Ten asked.

"Y'know, not from articles and captures."

"Right."

"I wonder if it's still in the game even, all the gates and keys," Jeena pondered.

"Damn, you're right. Might have missed my shot then huh? Oh well…tomorrow is another day."

Everyone nodded, but Ten drew his wand and pointed it at Airheart.

"What's your problem!?" Airheart drew a MAC-10 from his inventory and pointed it back at Ten.

"You're a Sixer!" Ten shouted.

"It's not what you think!" Airheart shouted back.

"You admit it?!" Jeena raised her rifle to Airheart, who drew another MAC-10 to aim at her.

"I said it's _not_ what you think!"

Cor drew his katana and held it at the ready. "Then how is it?"

Mads pulled out her crowbar, holding it like a shotgun, pointing it at Cor. Cor slowly turned his katana to Mads, gently catching the blade on the tip of her crowbar and guiding it to point at Airheart.

"I'm not some indent goon," Airheart said.

"Obviously, no indent has this kind of gear," Jeena said.

"Then what are you?" Cor demanded.

"I'm – I _was_ – an oologist."

"Was?" Jeena repeated.

"Oology is _done_. They shut it down the night Parzival won. Hundreds out of a job."

"Aww you're breakin' my heart," Ten sneered.

"There's been no news of that," Jeena interjected.

"Of course not, IOI's been silent since the end of the hunt. There's a bunch of restructuring, and oology was just cut loose after Sorrento was arrested. Higher-ups wanted to minimize his involvement with the company, so they nixed his entire department."

"So what are you doing here?" Cor asked.

"I'm…playing the game?" Airheart answered flatly.

The phrase itself perfectly encapsulated the reasoning. Why does anyone come to the OASIS? Why was I here? Why were any of us here? Regardless of where they all came from, they were all here for the same reason. To have fun. To play the game. Everyone stood in silence for a moment, gazes darting between pointed weapons.

"I have a question?" Mads finally broke the silence. "Why are we all pointing our guns at each other?"

"Because he pointed his…wand? At me," Airheart said.

"Because you're a Sixer!" Ten repeated.

"So what if I am, or was? I'm not out to gank players. I took you onto my ship, for money. Four of you, by the way, I'd stand no chance."

Jeena lowered her rifle. "He's got a point."

"A pretty sharp one," Cor said, spinning the katana in his hand, then stabbing it downward and into his inventory window.

"Ten, put it down," Jeena said.

"Do you wanna get to Tolkien, or what?" Airheart said.

Ten grimaced, but put his wand away.

"So…out of a job, huh?" Mads said, sauntering up to Airheart. "That uh…kinda sucks."

"Just a little. I've got savings, but that will only go so far."

"What are you gonna do?"

"Not sure. Amazingly, no one's in need of someone who knows about the life and interests of a single guy, even if it was Halliday. Not anymore."

"You're pretty interested in a Sixer, Mads," Jeena laughed, shouldering her rifle.

"Why is that so strange?" Airheart asked.

"Mads was a Sixer-Fixer," Cor said.

"And yet it was the jumpsuit wizard who drew on me first?"

"I'm turning over a new leaf," Mads said with a wink.

"More like there's no fun it anymore," Jeena said.

"And he's not a Sixer now, is he? No corporate onesie, no dumb helmet."

"I barely ever had that, I worked outside of the OASIS. In the desert, as it were."

"You seem like a decent guy, I'm sure you'll get by."

"Right, and even though I didn't get to play a lot, I know just far too much about the OASIS. Information will sell well, and I know a lot of good routes. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to check our heading – unless you'd all like to have another Mexican standoff."

"No, go 'head," Cor said. "Sorry."

"It's no problem," Airheart shouted from the cockpit.

Cor turned to his party and took a deep breath, his shoulder raised high.

"Well I feel sheepish," he said.

Mads just laughed.

"I don't think I've ever seen Ten move that quick in my life." Jeena chuckled.

"Yeah what the hell got into you?" Mads asked.

"He was Sixer, it was instinct. We'd been killing those guys like yesterday!" Ten jabbered.

"Aww, he's so embarrassed!" Mads poked Ten's shoulder with her crowbar.

"Whatever! Let's just get to Tolkien and pay the suit what we owe him."

Ten walked to his chair and slumped down into it with a huff. The others giggled while Ten pouted, scrolling through a browser window.

* * *

"Y'see, the song is expressing awareness of the total impermanence of life and relationships in the first verse, while in the second, it speaks of the utter randomness of the universe born from whatever decisions we choose, no matter how considered those decisions may be," Mads explained with all the fervor of someone connecting unrelated photographs with string on a corkboard.

"Fascinating," Airheart said, whether his tone was authentic or patronizing, no one could tell.

"The cheery tone of the song then alleviates the inevitable existential dread that such information would bestow upon the masses, e.g. the listener, but still reinforcing all that impermanence, all that randomness, by reminding us in the chorus, which sums up those elements with an innocuous-sounding, earworm-inducing scat vocalization…"

Airheart turned his head to meet Mads' gaze.

"That it's all gone in an 'mmmbop'," Mads said.

"All in an mmmbop?"

"Yeah!"

"Really? Just a single mmmbop?"

Mads clapped and pointed to Airheart.

"You don't have to patronize her, we don't," Jeena said.

"No it's okay…it's oddly interesting."

"This guy gets it!" Mads shouted to his friends, pointing to the pilot.

"We got it too, we just couldn't hear it for a third time," Cor said.

Mads jumped from the co-pilot's chair and danced her way into the cargo hold with the rest of the party.

"Mads, what are you doing?" Ten scolded.

"I'm making friends," Mads said with a shrugged.

"Why?"

"The guy just lost his job, Ten," Mads said with an exaggerated tone of empathy. "Have a little heart."

"Oh I have as little heart as possible for IOI, rest assured," Ten joked.

"We'll be making our approach to Tolkien, so it might get a little bumpy while I switch over to a lo-sci engine," Airheart called.

In the OASIS, where different regions would limit the use of high science or magic devices and items in their vicinity, the modifications that allowed the _Sea Duck_ to fly through space would have to be switched off so it could fly in the fantasy world of Tolkien. The plane shook as it neared the planet, and the engines cut out for a moment before turning back on, the propellers chopping the air.

"Is there some place specific you're aiming to go?" Airheart asked.

"Do you know where the Shire is?" Cor replied.

"Ha, 'do I know where the Shire is,' you got it!"

The _Sea Duck_ soon set itself down on the sparkling Brandywine River, in a recreation of the Shire. Airheart trotted from the cockpit into the cargo hold, adjusting the slick black gloves covering his hands.

"And we have arrived," Airheart said over the declining hum of the engines.

"Thanks, we really appreciate it," Cor said.

Airheart pulled a lever near the back of the hold and the cargo hatch opened, its lip splashing into the shallow end of the water, at a bend in the river. The party disembarked onto a grassy patch of land on the bank.

"Just let me know when you're ready to fly out again. I'll be here."

"Will you be okay staying here? This is a PvP area," Cor asked.

"I'll be fine. This baby has more than a few defensive systems hidden in her chassis."

"Don Karnage beware."

Airheart pointed to Cor with a smile.

"Maybe I'll chill at the Prancing Pony, eh?"

"Hey…why don't you just come with us?" Jeena asked.

"Huh?" Airheart slid his shades down the bridge of his nose.

"We were thinking about it on the plane," Jeena continued.

"We've gotta pay you for your troubles, and if you're just gonna sit around, why not come with us and get some loot out of the deal," Cor explained. "Whaddya say? You keep whatever you pick up, plus our agreed-upon fee."

Airheart nodded his head, thinking on the idea until he reached out for the _Sea Duck_ with his hand. The plane shrunk down, flying into his open palm as a small toy.

"Great idea," Airheart said, slapping the miniature plane into his inventory window with a smile on his face.

Mads let out a wild cheer, and Cor scrolled through his menu to invite Airheart to the party. His name and status meters appeared in my display when he accepted.

"Welcome to the party, Airheart," Cor said with a smirk.

"Glad to be here. So, what are we doing?"

"There's a low-level quest here to kill the Goblin King in the Misty Mountains," Cor explained. "Shouldn't be too hard, and there's lots of treasure stowed away in the mountain."

"The quest starts at Bag End, of course," Jeena said.

"I think I've got some travelling music!" Mads shouted as the party moved.

The opening of Men Without Hats' _Safety Dance_ emanated from Mads, but she stopped it several seconds in.

"No no no…wait…wait…" Mads muttered, scrolling through her menu. "Actually…you know what? Yeah."

The party travelled through the winding roads of Hobbiton as _Safety Dance_ played. It didn't take long until everyone was skipping along their way.

* * *

The NPC responsible for offering the quest was none other than Bilbo Baggins, chilling in Bag End with his big hairy feet up, sucking down on Longbottom Leaf to send smoke rings fluttering above his hobbit hole. It was a picturesque sight. Sometimes people came to Bag End just to chill out, spend some time at Bilbo's 111th birthday party.

"It's amazing what some people are able to do in this game," Airheart said, reading the flavor text of the quest in his menu window. "Everyone able to make their own quests for others to play, takes dedication on par with someone like Halliday."

"The architecture tools for the OASIS are pretty easy to use too, so that goes a pretty long way," Jeena said, skipping through Bilbo's dialogue just to get the quest in her log.

"They aren't _that_ easy to use. No one wanted to play mine," Mads pouted.

"Mads, no one played your quest because it made no sense," Jeena said.

"Your face made no sense!" Mads yelled, kicking Bilbo's gate open, the "No admittance" sign flying off in the gentle breeze.

"Have you ever even taken a quest before?" Ten asked, seeming annoyed.

"Oh uh, a long time ago, nothing special. Mostly quests to unlock some pretty choice shortcuts and secret locations," Airheart answered. "None of the community-generated ones, though. It was either Halliday-created or -related content, or poring over his autobiography."

"Well, strap yourself in slick, you're about to get a crash course in slaying quests," Mads said with pomp.

"It's not really all that hard," Jeena interjected.

"I'm gathering that I find the thing on the list and…slay it?" Airheart asked, playing along.

"Damn…this guy's good," Mads said, throwing an arm around Jeena.

"Have to keep up this air of professionalism, don't I?" Airheart said, adjusting his lapels. "It sounds like you've all done this one before, too?"

"Yeah, it's part of our comeback tour. We zeroed out on Chthonia, so we made lists of everything we lost, now we're out to get it all back," Jeena explained.

"Ha, personal quest, I get it," Airheart replied.

Jeena nodded with a smirk

"Okay! Everyone got the quest? We're off to the Misty Mountains," Cor said.

"I don't think there would be any place for me to land the _Sea Duck_ nearby, how will we get there?" Airheart asked.

"Oh, don't worry about it," Cor replied. "Let's go."

When the party reached the outer limits of the Shire, we were treated to a cutscene that showed a montage of them automatically traversing the expanses of Middle-Earth, while the _Lord of the Rings_ theme played. Whoever created the quest had a sense of humor, and it wasn't long before the party had reached the mouth of the cave that led inside the Misty Mountains.

"Alright everyone, weapons ready. Here there be goblins…" Cor drew his katana from his inventory window and tapped it on his red leather-clad shoulder.

Jeena pulled the bolt back on her rifle; Mads slapped her crowbar into the palm of her offhand; Ten spun his wand between his fingers; and Airheart took a deep breath, holding a MAC-10 in each hand, pointed to the ground.

"Thunderbirds are go," the pilot said.

The front porch to Goblin Town was a rickety collection of planks, flanked on either side by torches made of human skulls. Chatter from goblins in distant caverns echoed through the mountain, while a low, humming chant persisted somewhere, betraying the Goblin King's position.

"So this is pretty easy as far as quests go, the dungeon is mostly a bunch of walkways, and we'll only fight goblins as we get to the king," Cor explained.

"And that's our target, yeah?" Airheart checked.

"Correct. As a slaying quest, we literally don't have to do anything but kill the target. Any other enemies or loot is just gravy."

"Right," Airheart said.

It wasn't long until the first set of goblins climbed up from the sides of a walkway. Jeena shot several off before they had time to clamor from the ledge, while Mads and Cor began swinging away at the rest.

"Keep up the rear, they tend come from all around," Jeena ordered.

Ten and Airheart turned their backs to the party, blasting away the flanking goblins with spells and bullets. They fell to the planks as small puddles of coins.

"Guns sort of trivialize this quest, huh?" Airheart said as he reloaded his guns.

"I'm not complaining," Ten said, drawing in his share of the coins.

"For once," Mads laughed.

"The goblins are weak, but there's a lot of them. It's like a beginner's quest, but they can pile up if we're not careful," Cor said.

As the party moved deeper into the bowels of Goblin Town, the drumming chant grew louder, accompanied by the cacophony of coins, tinkling and crashing on the wooden walkways for every enemy slain, and the blasts of gunfire and magic that slew them. Mads continued her scavenger hunt, shoving butter knives, loaves of bread, cups, really any random junk on tables they passed into her inventory. Cutting through swathes of goblins quickly led them to the Goblin King's throne, a larger, square platform of wooden planks hanging over a chasm that stretched down into the dark.

"Alright, here we are," Cor said.

The Goblin King, corpulent on his throne, eyed the party, slamming the tip of his mighty staff into the planks with a thunderous wallop. He brushed the flabby, boil-pocked flesh dangling from his chin with an inquisitively scripted ponderance. He lumbered out of his throne, stepping down from his footstool made of a pile of goblins. He took a deep breath, and started monologuing, "Abominations, mutations, deviations. That's all you're gonna find down here! Who would be so–"

The king stopped abruptly at the crack of a single round of gunfire, a small hitspark exploding right between his eyes as a bullet found its mark. Jeena stood with her rifle raised and steadied on the boss. She glanced away from her iron sights to the party, who looked back at her. The single shell from her fired shout loudly bounced on the wood, before rolling between the cracks and clanging across the cavern walls, flipping into the depths.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to listen to Nutsack Chin's monologue?" she said.

The king swiped his staff at Jeena, and she braced against the clubbing with her rifle. Cor rushed in, slicing the Goblin King's side, but was struck from behind with the king's staff on a return swing. Cor's health meter in the corner of my HUD dipped dangerously low as he stumbled.

"Okay, he hits a little harder when you're level one," Cor said.

Mads ran to Cor as the Goblin King grabbed one of the goblins on his footrest pile and chucked it ahead. Mads dipped under the wailing goblin to reach Cor, and Airheart sprayed a cloud of bullets ahead, the flying goblin shattering into coins that splashed past him. The pilot then turned his guns to the king himself, pelting him with a light burst of gunfire.

"Lemme tell you, I'm not fairing much better at level three," Airheart said. "Does he just have his club and…throwing goblins?"

"As far as I remember," Cor said, climbing to his feet.

Mads cast a minor healing spell on Cor, and he was put back into a stable amount of health.

"Watch it!" Jeena fired into the king's shoulder, but he kept his attention to Cor and Mads, bringing his staff down from overhead. Ten projected a shield of magic between his friends and the Goblin King, and his staff bounced away. When the shield fell, Cor rushed back in, stabbing his sword into the king's stomach and leaping high into the air, dragging the blade up through the boss' body. The Goblin King groped for Cor with his free hand as he landed on his shoulders, stabbing his sword into the monster's collar for stability. Airheart skipped back while spraying into the king's stomach, meeting with Jeena as the two reloaded. Mads coiled back with her crowbar, and let out a shrill "BATTER UP!" as she swung right into the back of the Goblin King's leg, forcing him to take a knee.

"Expelliarmus!" Ten shot a blast from his wand straight into the Goblin King's hand, throwing his skull staff off the platform.

"Go for it!" Mads shouted with the activation of a short-lived bardsong.

Mads held her crowbar like a guitar and strummed, her hips sporadically moving to an imagined beat. An icon denoting increased attack power appeared next to everyone's names in my HUD, and the party went in for one final assault. Cor dipped back and dropped to the floor, dragging his katana down the Goblin King's spine. Ten, Jeena, and Airheart unloaded with everything they had, bullets and blasts of magic hitting the king squarely in his wide form. Cor swung wildly, carving into the king's back, the boss' HP dipping at an alarming rate.

"Ten seconds left, bring it on home!" Mads called.

Jeena reloaded, snapped the bolt of her rifle, and rushed the boss, leaping from the king's bent knee and up onto his shoulders. She pressed her rifle into the Goblin King's face and squeezed the trigger, unloading the entire magazine. With each pop of gunfire a huge chunk was shaved off the king's HP meter, until there was nothing left. The Goblin King stumbled back and teetered forward until he fell over completely, shattering into a pile of coins as his face hit the planks. Jeena landed cleanly amidst the loot, gold coins sliding off her armor as she turned to the party.

"Phew…" Cor sighed.

"Nice work," Airheart said.

"Jeena showing off again," Ten said.

The coins swirled around, drawn into the characters' outstretched hands. For each piece of coin collected, a commensurate amount of experience was earned as well, pushing Cor, Jeena, Ten, and Mads up to the third level. A blast of light blanketed each player as their level increased, and Mads laughed maniacally.

"Mwahahaaa! I can feel my power returning!" she yelled, flexing her bicep. "Look at this! Look at these musssclesssss!"

"That's a level three muscle right there," Jeena said, slapping Mads' arm.

"I feel like I could lift a bus, just because I wanted to!"

With the pile of coins cleared, Cor picked up a black leather trenchcoat that was left behind, slowly spinning just above the floor.

"Well here it is, check one off the list for me," Cor said.

"And I was just getting used to the _Beat It_ jacket," Mads said. "C'mon, give us some slick moves before you Neo up. A moonwalk, a shimmy, something."

"You're the dancer here Mads, not…me…" Cor said, trailing off as a massive rumbling echoed from the bowels of Goblin Town.

"That's not a good sound," Airheart said.

Cor shoved the trenchcoat into his inventory window and swiped it away. "We should get outta here."

The party rushed down the rickety walkways of Goblin Town as a deluge of goblins flooded from the caverns. They blocked the walkway that lead to the entrance, forcing the players to take a detour, climbing higher up the wooden paths while goblins swarmed behind them.

"I completely don't remember this!" Cor yelled, leading the party down narrow walkways as goblins screeched from every conceivable direction.

"Neither do I, is this new?" Mads wondered, whacking a goblin off the path.

"I think we just hauled ass last time. Slaying quest, yeah?" Jeena said, smashing a goblin in the face with the butt of her rifle.

"There! There's a light!" Cor said, pointing his sword to a pinprick of sunlight amidst the murky glow of the torches.

The party carved their way through a group of goblins blocking a small pathway, emerging on an outcropping of mountain that formed a land bridge with another peak.

"We cross and head back down, no problem!" Cor said.

The party stopped, however, when goblins began to fill the threshold on the other end of the land bridge.

"Pincer attack," Jeena muttered.

"Okay…uh…so we kill the goblins… _then_ head back down. No problem," Cor said.

"Whose idea was it to go up?" Ten whined.

"I think we took a wrong turn," Airheart said.

"We're okay, we're okay," Cor muttered.

"We are totally _not_ okay!" Jeena said, plugging a few encroaching goblins with gunfire.

Ten reached over Jeena's shoulder, trying to blast goblins off the land bridge to thin out the horde.

"This side isn't looking much better," Airheart sprayed rounds from his machine guns into a veritable wall of goblins coming from the other end of the bridge.

"We're so boned!" Mads yelled.

As more goblins began to swarm the bridge, the earth underfoot cracked, seams scarring like lightning across the rock, under the stress of what had to be the weight of the Misty Mountain's entire remaining population of goblins.

"Yarp…we're boned," Cor said.

With a loud snap, the bridge was rent to gravel and shards of rock, and everyone, the party and the horde of goblins, fell. Players screamed, and goblins howled. Yet, just because they were plummeting to the bottom of the Misty Mountains didn't mean the fight was over. Goblins snarled and thrashed, taking off bits of HP until the party fought back. Mads swung for the fences wildly with her crowbar, cracking homeruns on goblin skulls. Cor kicked off one goblin and flew blade-first into another, pressing his foe into the side of the mountain as it raced by, scraping the goblin into a shredding of coins as they fell. Jeena choked a goblin and unloaded her assault rifle into its stomach until it shattered into a cloud of gold coins.

"Jeena! Back me up!" Ten yelled.

Ten blasted a group of goblins away, using the recoil of his spell to fly backwards into Jeena. The two spun back-to-back, locking their free arms and unloading a vortex of bullets and sparkles into the swarm of goblins that tried to close in on them.

"So we should probably figure out how to not go splat!" Mads yelled, pressing her feet into the back of a goblin and turning its skull into a pile of coins with her crowbar.

"That's my cue!" Airheart called. "Cor! Hold this!"

With my attention, Airheart swiped his left arm sideways, tossing one of his guns to Cor. Cor unloaded the machine gun into a group of goblins, using his katana to dice up any that survived the buffet. Airheart opened his inventory and snatched the miniature _Sea Duck_ from the window, chucking it below as hard as he could. In a flash of green, the frame of the _Sea Duck_ unfolded beneath the falling party, its chassis clapping together, wings unfurling. As the plane finished materializing, Airheart pointed a fob to it, and with a _ba-bweep_ the cargo hatch opened to swallow up the party. They tumbled in the cargo hold, grabbing on to straps and chairs as the plane continued its nosedive towards the bottom of the canyon.

"Hold on to something!" Airheart said as he coolly slid down the hold and into the cockpit.

Airheart pressed himself into the pilot's seat, quickly flipping switches to ignite the engines. Goblins grabbed onto the plane's chassis, hacking away at the paneling while others, chopped up by the rotors, exploded into coins. Airheart tilted in his chair, sending the plane into a tailspin that launched the goblin hangers-on into the mountainsides. The terrified wails of the party drowned out even the sound of the engines.

"Sorry!" Airheart called, steering the plane out of its spin.

"I hope whatever that was you just did was really cool!" Mads cried.

"I'm gonna throw up on my boot suit!" Ten yelled.

Airheart planted his feet on either side of the console, pulling back on the steering to raise the plane out of its nosedive. The _Sea Duck_ swooped over the canyon floor, steadying itself horizontally amidst a shower of coins. The party in the cargo hold fell to the floor, watching the flood of coins bounce and shine, catching the midday sun as they scattered across the canyon's bottom.

"Are we alive?!" Cor shouted.

"Jesus Reginald Christ, he did it!" Mads cheered.

"We're not done just yet. If you're hanging on, keep doing so, if you're not, please start," Airheart said.

The plane tilted up, climbing up the canyon a short way before turning and dipping back down.

"What are you doing?" Cor asked.

"Taking what's ours, friend!"

The _Sea Duck_ leveled out, nearly skimming the canyon floor, now glittering like gold. The plane flew over the sheet of gold coins, creating a vacuum of treasure that drew itself up into the plane's cargo hatch, filling the party's inventories with the goblins' loot. Each player watched as their wallets filled with stacks and stacks of coins, their value easily climbing into the quadruple digits. With that amassment of coin came experience points, which left the interior of the plane a light show of effects that accompanied their avatars leveling up several times. The _Sea Duck_ flew out of the Misty Mountains as it echoed with heartfelt cheers of joy and victory.

* * *

The plane landed back at Brandywine River, and Cor met Airheart as he exited the cockpit, handing the pilot back his MAC-10.

"Oh, thank you," Airheart said, hiding the weapon beneath his jet-black suit jacket.

"No man, thank _you_ ," Cor started. "You saved our asses back there, and–"

"–and you looked too damn cool doing it," Mads said.

"Would it make you all feel better, or worse, if I told you I'd never done anything like that before, and I was absolutely terrified the entire time?"

"A little of column A, little of column B," Jeena said with a smile.

"We're…swimming in coin now, thanks to your flying," Cor said.

"And now we're like, level ten! And we haven't even turned in the quest yet," Mads chimed in.

"Glad I could help out," Airheart said. "I hope you'll invite me again sometime."

"As far as I'm concerned, you're _part_ of this clan," Ten said, surprisingly.

"Ten, what?" Jeena asked.

"Who _are_ you?" Mads squinted.

"What? He really pulled through for us," Ten said. " _All_ of us, together. Not just us four, and not just himself."

"Oh hey, it's nothing," Airheart rubbed the back of his neck.

"No…you know what? He's right," Cor said with a nod. "Who cares if we met you like…five hours ago? What you did today was awesome."

"I know things are tough, getting sacked from IOI and all, so if we can make your time here in the OASIS more enjoyable, you're…welcome with us," Ten said.

"Ha, thank you. Hey, speaking of…how'd you figure out I was a Sixer anyway?" Airheart asked.

"Hey yeah, how _did_ you do that?" Mads added.

"Uh…context clues."

"Hokay. Vaguetown, population Ten. Er…not the number, but…jumpsuit wizard. Sole citizen and de facto mayor. Do something about those potholes, Mayor McCheese!"

"Okay…fine." Ten sighed loudly. "Since we've gotten all 'Hallmark' with our feelings lately…"

"What-now?" Airheart asked.

"I think he's referring to when Cor told us why he didn't take the egg hunt seriously," Jeena said.

"Wasn't fun anymore," Cor added.

"Ah," Airheart said.

"He cried," Mads whispered, loudly.

"I did not."

"Like a newborn baby," Mads continued.

"Anyway!" Ten said. "I knew Airheart was a Six…er…oologist, because I used to be an oologist, too."

"The fucking _what_ now?" Mads reeled back in surprise.

"Come again for Big Fudge," Cor said.

"The term 'information analysis' he'd said was a pretty common way of explaining what you did to other people, without it sounding like you got paid to be obsessed with a single dude. It was a joke in oology while I was there, about what to put down on your resumé."

Airheart let out a jovial "Hm."

"But it was what you said after, that 'tomorrow is another day' thing. It's what oology used to say like every night when we came up with nothing."

"Damn, man. Why didn't you tell us?" Cor asked.

"Tell you that I used to work for IOI? Tell Mads, a Sixer-Fixer that I used to be what she loves ganking?"

"Heeey, I can show some restraint," Mads said.

"You _used_ to work for them. How'd you get out?" Jeena interrupted.

"Luckily, oologists aren't exactly like indents. It's a pretty cushy gig if you can keep up, and I got lazy. Dejected. Saw how bad IOI was handling things in the OASIS. Working there you hear about the things they plan on doing if they got the controlling shares. Plus, I wasn't…having fun? They fired me for underperformance, and it was honestly a blessing."

"Why'd you work for them in the first place?" Mads asked.

"It was 2040, I had just gotten out of high school. IOI's bullshit in the OASIS hadn't reached _peak_ bullshit yet. They were offering good benefits, and I needed a job. I thought it would be fun, searching for the egg, playing the game with the full backing of a giant company…well, we see how all that turned out. I was gone by early '42."

"Ah, I came on in the fall of '42. Same reasons, really," Airheart said.

"Yeah, you also mentioned that three years' worth of Halliday knowledge led you nowhere. Three years ago people started to think the egg hunt and gunters were a joke – by then the only people who still cared about the egg were obsessed gunters, and oologists who were _paid_ to be obsessed."

"Is that why you were always so pissed when IOI got closer to the egg?" Cor asked.

"Firsthand experience." Ten nodded. "And it's why I really understood what you said about not having fun with the game anymore. I started to get worried about IOI killing all the fun in the game. I could have been set for life, but if IOI got that egg, it'd ruin other peoples' lives. So many depend on this place to escape the real world. If IOI messed with that, just for their own bottom line…? I would have been complicit in that."

"Oof, hittin' Airheart below the belt, there," Mads said.

"No. I know how he feels, but he's right. The real world is rough, and the OASIS is a great escape. I don't blame him. I come here to fly, see the sights, I can only imagine the other people who use this to escape worse lives. This place is important."

"And I don't blame any of my old coworkers. Jobs can be hard to come by. My personality just…didn't mix with oology, and what it strove for," Ten said. "I managed to keep my debt pretty low, worked it off under a year, then I was free to get the egg fair and square. I was free to play the game."

"If it makes you feel any better, all of us were pretty blindsided by the lay-offs. You work there for so many years, you start to feel that you'll have the position forever. Deep down I suppose we never wanted to think about what would happen when the hunt ended. Win or lose, we would be out of a job, but at least if we won we expected a big severance package, some kind of bonus."

"But all you got was the boot," Mads said, gently kicking the air.

"Yup. But, I'm a saver, of both dollars and coins."

"And now you've got us," Cor said.

"For what that's worth," Ten said, making no effort to hide his grin.

"Aw look at you two, you were pointing guns at each other earlier today, and now you're like, the bestest of buds!" Mads said.

Ten held his hand out to Airheart, who took it without a moment's hesitation.

"Welcome to the party, Airheart," Ten said.


End file.
